POKERSTARS LAUNCHES BIGGEST EVER SCOOP FESTIVAL

Spring Championship expanded to 55 events with over $40 million guaranteed

ONCHAN, Isle of Man – April 12, 2016 – The 2016 Spring Championship of Online Poker will be the biggest in the festival’s history, PokerStars, an Amaya Inc. (Nasdaq: AYA; TSX: AYA) brand, revealed today. This year’s SCOOP, which takes place from May 8-22*, has been increased by nine events to a record 55 (nine more than last year’s 46) across three stakes (Low, Med, High), making for a total of 165 tournaments. The guaranteed prize pool is more than $40 million.

Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier, who won three SCOOP events in 2015 to become Overall Player of the Series, is targeting top spot on the Leaderboard again: “After a very successful SCOOP last year, winning three titles and the overall Player of the Series, I’m going to be fully focused on defending that title and taking down some more events. There are 165 tournaments and an incredible array of games and formats – it’s just a great time of year for online poker players and I can’t wait for the series to start.”

SCOOP SCHEDULE The prestigious three-day Main Event will begin on Sunday, May 22 with buy-ins of $100 (Low), $1,000 (Med), and $10,000 (High) and guaranteed prize pools of $1 million, $2 million and $4 million respectively. There will be special Spin & Go satellites to the Main Events in the run up to them. Enhancing the player experience, SCOOP 2016 will incorporate lots of new events and formats, including:

The first Players’ Choice event, which was voted for by PokerStars players and resulted in the following three tournaments for SCOOP-13: o$7.50 NL Hold’em [Hyper-Turbo, Progressive Super-Knockout, Ultra-Deep] o$82 NL Hold’em [8-Max, Progressive Knockout o$700 NL Hold’em [Progressive Super-Knockout]

The first non-heads-up High-Roller event in SCOOP (Event 24, 8-Max NLHE), created in response to high player demand, featuring buy-ins of $215 (L), $2,100 (M) and $21,000 (H).

The first 3-Max event in the history of PokerStars’ Championship series. SCOOP-45 will be an NL Hold’em 3-Max [Turbo, Progressive Knockout, Zoom] tournament, with players being moved to a new table every hand to face two fresh opponents with bounties on their heads.

The first Mix-Max event (SCOOP-47) in the history of PokerStars’ Championship series. The first part will be played 9-Max, the second part 6-Max, with a short break in between to transfer surviving players (and their chips) to Part 2.

The first Phase event (SCOOP-51) in SCOOP history. Multiple Phase 1s will take place throughout SCOOP, leading up to the final Phase 1s on May 22. Phase 2s (one per stake level) will take place later on May 22.

In addition, SCOOP-26 features a deep payout structure, which will see at least 20% of the field make the money, and there are more multi-day events than ever before – 140 of 165 tournaments are two-day, and three are three-day – building on the importance and prestige of the series.

Online qualifiers to all the events are running now at PokerStars, with satellites starting from just $0.11 or 1 StarsCoin.

PLAYER OF THE SERIES LEADERBOARD The most successful players across all three stakes will also be rewarded for their achievements with more than $100,000 in WCOOP tickets and cash to be given away. The winners of the Low, Medium and High Leaderboards will each receive a trophy, WCOOP Main Event ticket and $5,000 cash, while the SCOOP (Overall) winner will get a trophy and $20,000 cash. Hundreds of other WCOOP tickets, ranging from a $27 Deadline Turbo Ticket to a $2,100 WCOOP ticket, are available for players who reach the top spots on the leaderboards.

TWITCH STREAMING Poker fans can follow much of the action live by watching the Team PokerStars Pros’ Twitch streams as they play. Team Pro Online member Jaime Staples has set himself the audacious goal of playing more than 100 tournaments and streaming all the events, which would be some feat. Other Team Pro Online members who have plans to stream some action, include: Felix ‘xflixx’ Schneiders, Randy ‘nanonoko’ Lew, Lex Veldhuis, Andre Coimbra, Gregorz ‘DaWarsaw’ Mikielewicz, Mikhail ‘Innerpsy’ Shalamov, Tyler ‘Frosty012’ Frost, Adrienne ‘TalonChick’ Rowsome, and Roy ‘GodLikeRoy’ Bhasin.

SCOOP ALL-TIME STATS The Spring Championship has a rich history of high-profile winners, and topping the all-time money list is Mustapha ‘lasagnaaammm’ Kanit – last year’s Main Event High winner – who has earned more than $1.7 million in SCOOP events.

Team PokerStars Pro’s George Danzer has most cashes with 148 – 40 more than the second-placed player, Polish Team PokerStars Pro Marcin ‘Goral’ Horecki, who has 108. James ‘AndyMcLEOD’ Obst is third on 105.

But it’s Calvin ‘cal42688’ Anderson who sits atop the most important table – SCOOP titles – with six victories. The mixed game specialist is the man to be caught this coming series, and is being tracked by ‘shaundeeb’ on five wins, with ‘lb6121’ and Team PokerStars Pros Jason Mercier and George Danzer on four apiece.

*The final five events get under way on May 22, but SCOOP-51/52/53 (all two-day tournaments) finish on May 23, while the three-day Main Event (SCOOP-54) will finish on May 24.

About PokerStars PokerStars operates the world’s most popular online poker sites, serving the global poker community. Since it launched in 2001, PokerStars has become the first choice of players all over the world, with more daily tournaments than anywhere else and with the best online security. More than 145 billion hands have been dealt on PokerStars, which is more than any other site.

PokerStars.com and PokerStars.eu operate globally under licenses from the Isle of Man and Malta governments, respectively. PokerStars also holds local licenses or approvals to offer services to players in many jurisdictions, including Italy, France, Estonia, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, United Kingdom, Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, Ireland, Romania and New Jersey in the United States of America.

brands

Press Center

The Stars Group is not responsible for the content of independent third party articles posted to its website. The Stars Group is providing these articles to you as a convenience and did not investigate or verify the information in any such articles and the inclusion of any article does not imply that The Stars Group endorses it. The Stars Group makes no representation as to the accuracy of the information in the articles and does not, does not intend to, and expressly disclaims any duty to, update or correct such information.

The Stars Group has no control over information available at or through hyperlinked sites. The Stars Group makes no representation as to, and is not responsible for, the quality, content, nature or reliability of any hyperlinked site, or any information available on or through any such sites or websites. The Stars Group provides hyperlinks, if any, to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any hyperlink does not imply any endorsement, investigation, verification or monitoring by The Stars Group of any information contained in any hyperlinked site. In no event shall The Stars Group be responsible for your use of a hyperlinked site.